St. Petersburg’s Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood, seen from Nevsky Prospekt, a few blocks away, and with the city’s plethora of overhead wires on display, as well.

This is the final installment of Nadine Godwin’s series on St. Petersburg. Read her other articles here and here.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — The Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood is a unique name, but this one also has been called the Church on the Potato because, for a time, the Soviets used it as a warehouse for food.

I visited the mosaic-covered interior of this ornate building during visits to Russian Orthodox churches while on a press trip sponsored by the St. Petersburg Tourism Committee.

We visited three churches, on a Sunday morning as it happened.

Spilled Blood

Spilled Blood, a handy shorthand name for this one, sits on the site, beside Griboyedov Canal, where Tsar Alexander II was mortally wounded by assassins (1881). It was built on that spot and in the style of the 14th to 16th centuries on orders of the dead tsar’s son, Tsar Alexander III. This was a private memorial to Alexander II and not open to the general public.

The church boasts many colorful domes and looks a lot like St. Basil’s in Moscow. We see the domes’ resemblance to onions, but they are meant to imitate candlelight, “symbolizing the light of Christ,” our guide Tanya said.

St. Petersburg’s Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood, seen at night, when it looks a bit like frosting on a cake.

The mosaics that line interior walls, depicting the life and deeds of Christ, comprise Russia’s largest collection of mosaics (covering more than 75,000 square feet).

Samples of the mosaics that cover the walls inside St. Petersburg’s Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood.

Further, the floor is marble as is the central iconostasis at the front of the church.

Decorative marble floor inside St. Petersburg’s Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood, roped off for protection from countless visitors.

After using the church as a warehouse, then as a morgue during the Nazis’ siege of Leningrad, the Soviets saw the church’s touristic value and undertook a full restoration, starting in 1970. That took 27 years, longer than the 24 required to build from scratch.

Early on, restorers extracted a live shell, which had hit the church in 1944. The biggest part of the project was cleaning the mosaics, Tanya said, adding that 90% are originals.

The church was consecrated on Aug. 19, 1907, and reopened on Aug. 19, 1997.

This is a very impressive place to visit. What a shame we tourists do so much in a hurry.

Kazan Cathedral

Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, which was a museum in Soviet times.

The exterior of Kazan Cathedral, on St. Petersburg’s broad Nevsky Prospekt, is distinguished by its sweeping arc-shaped colonnade.

One wing of the arc-shaped colonnade that fronts Kazan Cathedral on St. Petersburg’s Nevsky Prospekt.

Now an active church, it was the Museum of Religion and Atheism for part of the Soviet period.

Given our press group visited on a Sunday, we were strolling in the background during a service.

Tanya said the official rule is that photos are not allowed in any active church, whether a service is under way or not, but the reality depends on how strict the local priest is. I blindly took photos while my camera hung from my neck, then straightened the shots with iPhoto.

This cathedral, built between 1801 and 1811, is a big, heavy-looking building — the opposite of delicate — but with attractive decorative features, just the same.

Interior of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, during a Sunday service.

Inside, the centerpiece for the faithful is an icon of Our Lady of Kazan. We could see worshippers kissing the icon, or “venerating” it, as Tanya said. I figure it was a great way to spread disease. This service was memorable for the chanting.

A sample of decorative goods made by the Faberge jewelers, in addition to the eggs for which Faberge is best known. These items are on display in the Faberge Museum, which is on St. Petersburg’s Fontanka River Embankment.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — It wasn’t intentional, but Russia’s tsars and the aristocracy bequeathed to the public a large assortment of royal residences in and around St. Petersburg.

Some are shoo-ins for the tourist circuit, including summer palaces such as Peterhof and Catherine Palace, discussed in a separate article, and the Winter Palace (part of the Hermitage Museum).

Others are less known, but one emerged from obscurity in 2013 and is sure to be a hit with visitors, not because of the palace (which is gorgeous, BTW), but because it houses the Faberge Museum.

I visited the museum less than a year after its debut while on a press trip sponsored by the St. Petersburg Tourism Committee. Our itinerary took in other former palaces, too.

We even stayed in one, now the Four Seasons Lion Palace St. Petersburg, which debuted as a very upscale apartment house in 1820. (The Four Seasons Website tells us that most city center palaces were apartment houses for the rich.)

As to our sightseeing, the following will appeal to widely varied interests.

Shuvalov Palace

It took seven years to restore the 19th century Shuvalov so it could house the Faberge Museum.

Interior of the Shuvalov Palace, which houses the Faberge Museum in St. Petersburg. The famed eggs are in this room, notable for walls covered in blue silk with a silver design and the very ornate gold gilt molding that tops off the room, literally.

The museum, a private operation, was the brainchild of Russian entrepreneur Viktor Vekselberg, whose collection the museum’s displays are based on. His idea is to restore to Russia treasures that were lost to the country during the Soviet period.

Vekselberg began the process by purchasing the late Malcolm Forbes’ collection of Faberge eggs and other items. After Forbes died, his sons had put the package up for auction. That was 2004, and the price tag was $120 million.

More treasures have been added and now there are 4,000 items on display, made by Faberge and other specialists.

Examples of the very expensive trinkets commissioned by the upper classes in tsarist Russia. Expert artisans other than Faberge made these items, seen in the Faberge Museum.

The museum has 13 Faberge eggs, nine of which belonged to the tsars, including the first (1885) and the last (1916) egg made for the royal family. Faberge made 50 eggs for the family.

In addition, display goods include icons, jewelry, silver, paintings and a range of other personal and household items indicative of the lifestyle of the rich and connected in tsarist days. The palace itself, with gilt molding, richly colored silk wall coverings and a truly grand entry staircase, is a good indicator, too.

Visitors can rent a book with information about display items to use if touring the museum without a guide. The 150-ruble “rent” (between $4 and $5) is really a deposit and refundable.

Yusupov Palace

Now the property of St. Petersburg’s teachers’ union, this palace won its place in history because the “holy man” Rasputin was murdered here in 1916. The killers were the young Oxford-educated Prince Felix Yusupov and a number of coconspirators who believed Rasputin’s influence over Tsar Nicholas II and his family was dangerous. Yusupov’s wife was the tsar’s niece.

The Red Reception Room in the Yusupov Palace, which is located on the Moika River in St. Petersburg.

On our tour, our guide led us into a Yusupov living room to view a diorama of Felix’s conspirators. We then visited a basement diorama with Rasputin at the table and the young Felix standing nearby.

Diorama in Yusupov Palace illustrating the Rasputin figure in the basement at the time when he had been eating poison — to no effect.

Rasputin had been lured to the palace believing he would meet Felix’s wife. During the wait for this supposed encounter, Felix fed him poison-laced food, to no avail. Felix later shot him.

We also had a short tour of some rooms used by Felix’s parents. Builders of this 1910 home used interesting building materials. The paneling in the tapestry room is plaster, but it certainly doesn’t look like it.

And, in the palace’s big ballroom, the large chandelier is 32 kilos (70 pounds) of papier-mache while smaller light fixtures are 10 kilos (22 pounds) of papier-mache.

The 70-pound papier-mache chandelier in the ballroom at Yusupov Palace.

The palace has a menu of visitor fees covering a variety of experiences, such as a fee for seeing the Rasputin diorama in the basement, another for seeing the younger Yusupovs’ private apartment, etc.

There was a rather stiff photo fee (more than $4), and this was the one place in St. Petersburg where the fee was barely worth it.

Constantine Palace

I had never heard of this one. Essentially, Constantine Palace — except for its outer walls — is a reconstruction. It is an official state residence and a business center.

The entry point for the restored Constantine Palace, located in Strelna, a St. Petersburg suburb on the Gulf of Finland.

It dates from 1720, but has been abandoned for more than half its existence. During World War II, it was reduced to a stone frame. Restoration took 18 months in 2000 and 2001.

Located in a suburb called Strelna, the palace offers a variety of regular tours, except when it is in use for state business.

This is a stately and pristine reconstruction of an 18th century palace, especially on the exterior, with a broad plaza at the front centered with an equestrian statue of Peter the Great.

Statue of Peter the Great standing in front of the Constantine Palace. The palace was conceived and construction started while Peter was tsar, but he gave more attention to Peterhof.

Another broad plaza at the back overlooking formal gardens and a system of canals.

Grounds of Constantine Palace, with some of its broad exterior staircases in view.

A central canal leads from the palace to a modern meeting pavilion, designed to harmonize with the 18th century style of the main building. The Gulf of Finland is just beyond the pavilion. The canals can be used for boating.

The canal at the back of Constantine Palace that stretches to a modern meeting pavilion seen in the distance, with the Gulf of Finland behind it. Formal gardens are at right.

As to the interior, the west side is the president’s side, and the east side is for VIP guests, but there are no bedrooms. There are meeting spaces and event spaces. President Vladimir Putin and all guests stay in 20 new cottages on the grounds, and these are very big cottages!

Private space for the Russian president, seen in the Constantine Palace.

Putin always stays in a specific cottage, which is never available to anyone else. The other 19 can be rented when the government isn’t using the property.

There are approximately 17,000 bottles of Hungarian wine in the cellar, a gift from Hungary, but Putin’s drink is beer.

A young couple using the Constantine Palace and its grounds as a backdrop for wedding photos.

Some of the abandoned cave dwellings at Uplistsikhe, one of Georgia’s three ancient rock cities.

GORI, Georgia — This is the kind of small city in the back of beyond that North American travelers wouldn’t generally hear about but for the fact that Joseph Jughashvili, aka Joseph Stalin, was born here.

Gori is 42 miles northwest of Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, a former Soviet republic located in the Caucasian Mountains just south of Russia.

The roughly 900-year-old city boasts a number of sites of some touristic interest — a citadel, churches, outdoor works of art, a museum to the Great Patriotic War (World War II), a market — but my group dropped in specifically because of Stalin.

Three relevant points of interest — a museum, the birthplace and a railcar — are clustered together, which made a focused visit easier.

The Stalin Museum, perversely, looked like a Tuscan villa, but it wasn’t that heartwarming inside.

The facility set out to tell Stalin’s life story — with serious omissions, such as the number of people whose deaths he was responsible for — and his face was all over the place, in photos, paintings, sculptures, even a death mask and an image

Joseph Stalin’s likeness appears throughout the Stalin Museum, even woven as for a carpet as seen here.

The exterior of the Stalin Museum, which resembles Tuscan architectural styles, in Gori.

woven in the manner of a carpet.

The museum, first created to honor revolutionaries, was recast as

the Stalin Museum four years after the dictator’s 1953 death. The adulatory treatment of Stalin is offensive to many tourists because of Stalin’s murderous policies.

Things are not so simple for older Georgians, especially those from Gori. One trip host explained that many Georgians admire Stalin for “keeping prices down” and blame others for Stalin’s purges and other repressions.

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, but Stalin’s statue wasn’t removed from downtown Gori until 2010, 19 years later.

Office space once used by Joseph Stalin, inside the building that later became the Stalin Museum.

In addition, the museum only recently added two small rooms with displays related to the Stalin-era repressions. This was in response to visitor complaints, our on-site guide said.

However, our group of travel writers and travel agents missed one of the museum’s more fascinating displays, a banner in four languages that says, in part, ““This museum is a typical example of Soviet propaganda and fabrication of history. … The objective of this museum [was] to legitimize the bloodiest regime in history.”

The banner says the museum, still a Soviet-era creation, will be converted into the Museum of Stalinism.

The banner would have been a useful counterpoint to the Soviet-era exhibits except that staffers — reflecting their loyalty to Stalin — generally place it in a dark corner where most visitors won’t see it. I learned of it later.

A meeting space inside the railcar Joseph Stalin used for traveling in style around the Soviet Union.

A few steps from the museum, we walked through the railcar that Stalin used to travel around the country. Four people slept on that car when traveling, and there was a small meeting space on board, as well.

Our last stop here was the simple brick-and-wood house where Stalin was born in 1879. It

The house where Joseph Stalin was born.

has a small porch, from which we entered one room with rustic furnishings.

We were told the house is in its original location, which means the villa-like museum was intentionally constructed next to it, in the center of town. The house is now protected with an open-sided shelter.

Our local guide, a twenty-something woman, seemed to evaporate as soon as we had reached our final point, and I had no idea what she thought about the subject of her tours. She seemed to recite her material by rote, like a robot. I suppose if she despised Stalin, it wouldn’t be a good idea to say as much in Gori.

Gori’s neighborhood

The city is just south of South Ossetia, one of two Georgian breakaway regions that have fought for independence with support from Russia. (The other region is Abkhazia on the Black Sea.)

Damage from the 2008 conflagration was not obvious to us, but as we drove to Gori, we passed a huge refugee camp, comprising row upon row of small white houses with red roofs. The CIA says the country has 265,000 refugees as a result of warring with Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the early 1990s and in 2008.

On exiting Gori, we headed to a nearby abandoned cave city, with numerous caves dug at several levels into a rocky hillside.

Although the site is much older, the majority of the caves were cut

A wine label featuring Joseph Stalin’s visage, seen in a wine store near the Stalin Museum in Gori.

out during the Greek and Roman eras, when the city flourished.

Here, we had a considerably more enthusiastic on-site narrator. She said Uplistsikhe, one of the country’s three rock cities, was occupied until the 18th century. It was a site of agriculture and winemaking, as well as a stopping point on the Silk Road. It was “strong” in ninth to 11th centuries, she said.

Mongol raids in the 13th and 14th centuries largely destroyed the city, and east-west trade collapsed with discovery of sea

The hilltop Uplistsikhe Church, overlooking some of the cave dwellings that typify this abandoned rock city in Georgia.

routes between Europe and Asia.

A religious icon, seen inside the Uplistsikhe Church in the rock city of the same name.

A church was first cut out of the rocks, but a newer church, which we also visited, is a brick hilltop affair that dates from the 10th century.

We walked up and down the rough-hewn rock paths to see this place. The sun was bright, which made it quite hot during our late-September visit.

There were great views over a river, green countryside and on to the mountains, which seem ubiquitous in Georgia.